A Thousand-Year Wait
Liu Ruyan is a snake spirit who has cultivated for a thousand years. To repay a kindness, she takes human form and marries the scholar Fang Lansheng.
But Fang Lansheng turns out to be a reincarnated sword immortal, and on their wedding night, he runs his sword through her heart.
“Demon, I’ve been waiting for you to reveal your true form.”
Yet just as Liu Ruyan’s heart turns to ash and her soul is about to vanish, Fang Lansheng goes mad.
Kneeling before her remains, he picks up her shattered scales one by one, his voice hoarse:
“I saved all living beings. Why couldn’t I save you?”
Prologue
“A thousand years of cultivation, all for one night by the wedding candles. Was it worth it?”
The question came from the eternal snows atop Kunlun Mountain, from the moon rising and falling over the East Sea, and from the nightmare that had haunted Liu Ruyan for ten whole lifetimes.
She was a snake spirit.
A snake spirit who had cultivated for a thousand years. She had watched oceans turn into fields and heard stubborn stones awaken to the Dao. Her heart should have been as still as water, yet there was one thing she had failed to account for: the tribulation of love.
“Whether it was worth it is for me to decide.”
Liu Ruyan stroked her scarlet wedding dress. Her fingertips brushed the cool threads, but her heart burned. Tonight, she was Fang Lansheng’s bride.
Fang Lansheng, a poor scholar.
Ten lifetimes ago, he had been a destitute candidate traveling to the capital for the imperial examinations when he was caught in a rainstorm. She was still a naive little snake in the wilderness, her seventh vertebra crushed in a hunter’s trap, close to death. He was the one who pried open the cold iron jaws, carefully bound her with his handkerchief, and returned her to the grass.
“Go on. Don’t let them catch you again.”
She had remembered those words for ten lifetimes.
In this life, she had finally found his reincarnation. He was still as handsome and refined as ever, with a scholarly air about him, living in a thatched cottage at the foot of the mountain and studying day and night. She took the name Liu Ruyan and pretended to be an orphan bullied by a local tyrant, finding her way into his life as naturally as could be.
He called her “Ruyan.”
“Ruyan, your osmanthus cakes are delicious.”
“Ruyan, once I pass the imperial exams, I’ll never let you down.”
“Ruyan, the moon is lovely tonight. Just like you.”
His eyes held starlight and tenderness, the warmth she had coveted for a thousand years. She almost believed this was the happy ending she wanted.
Until their wedding night.
The red candles burned high, bathing the room in festive light. She sat on the edge of the bed, listening to his footsteps as he came through the door, her heart pounding like a drum.
He gently lifted her veil.
She looked up and met his gaze. It was nothing like his usual expression.
There was no tenderness, no drunkenness, only cold intent to kill.
“Demon.”
He spat out the word. A long, gleaming sword appeared in his hand, and he drove it straight into her chest.
“I’ve been waiting for you to reveal your true form.”
The pain of the blade piercing her heart was nothing compared to the alienation and loathing in his eyes. She lowered her head and watched blood pour from her chest, staining her wedding dress red. Her lower body began to lose control with the pain, revealing a serpent’s tail.
“You…”
She wanted to ask why.
But her spiritual power was rapidly fading. Her thousand years of cultivation poured out like water from a broken dam. She heard her bones crack and watched her crystal-clear scales peel away one by one, turning to ash.
So he was the reincarnation of a Kunlun sword immortal.
So he had never been waiting to pass the imperial exams.
“Why…?” she finally asked, her voice as faint as the wind.
His sword hand did not tremble. “Humans and demons belong to different worlds. You bring harm to all living beings. I’m carrying out Heaven’s will.”
Bringing harm to all living beings?
She laughed.
Who had she ever killed or harmed in all these years? All she wanted was to repay a kindness, to spend an ordinary lifetime as his wife.
“Fang Lansheng… you saved all living beings… why couldn’t you save me…”
Before she could finish, she could no longer hold on. She dissolved into points of light and vanished amid the sea of wedding red.
Only one shattered snake scale fell lightly onto the tip of his sword. Reflecting the candlelight, it gave off one last, tragic glimmer.
He should have turned and left.
The demon had been slain, his merit complete. He should have returned to Kunlun Mountain to report.
But he stood in the wrecked bridal chamber, staring at the place where she had disappeared. Her scales lay scattered at his feet, and suddenly his heart felt hollow.
As though something had been torn out of him by force.
Slowly, he fell to his knees.
His fingertips touched the largest scale. It was cold, with a trace of warmth still lingering in it. He remembered the focused look on her face as she brewed medicine for him, the clumsy stitches she used to mend his clothes, and how she had nestled against him just last night and softly said, “Lansheng, should we have a child?”
He remembered that she had never harmed anyone.
One scale, two, three…
Kneeling on the ground, he picked up her shattered scales one by one, his voice hoarse, like the final cry of a trapped beast.
“I saved all living beings… why couldn’t I save you?”
The candlelight flickered, illuminating the burning tears on his face and the remnants of her soul, which could never be pieced back together.
Outside the window, thunder cracked and rain poured down.
Heaven and earth mourned together.
And the sword immortal, who should have been free of all feeling and desire, finally understood in that moment: he had long since been doomed beyond redemption.
It was only a pity that he understood too late.
The bridal chamber was still awash in red, but his bride was gone.
Theme: The Ancient Sword
